Things Hidden
by rebecca-in-blue
Summary: "By the time he set foot in Narnia, the White Witch would find his heart ripe for her taking." A deeper look at why Edmund was in such a bad mood on the train.


There really isn't much plot to this story, I'm afraid. Edmund has always struck me as the most interesting of all the Pevensie children, and I wanted to write something that explored his personality a bit more. This is set at the very beginning of the first book, during the train ride from London.

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 _There is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed, and nothing secret that shall not be known. Whatsoever you have spoken in the darkness shall be heard in the light._ — The Gospel of Luke, 12:2-3.

"Where are you going?" Peter demands, as soon as Edmund stands up. "We're supposed to stay together."

Edmund glares at his older brother as he slides open the door to their train compartment. Peter has been acting even bossier than usual on this trip. "I just need to take a piss," he huffs.

Lucy practically falls off her seat giggling at the word _piss_. She's still young enough to get away with doing all the things that grown-ups are always telling Edmund he's too big for now.

Peter frowns. "I don't think there's a lavatory on this train," he says, but Edmund ignores him and steps out.

The hallway is narrow, and Edmund can feel the train sway as it roars down the tracks. He puts his hands on the walls to steady himself as he walks down to the end of the car. When he passes the door that they boarded through, he pauses and leans against it, staring out through its window. The gray cement of London is long gone, and the view now is all green grass and countryside, as far as Edmund's eyes can see. Pressed against the door, he can feel rumble and rhythm of the train all through his body, as if there's a tiny train inside him, chugging along through his bones.

It's not until he focuses on his own reflection in the glass that he remembers that he's looking for the lavatory. Cramped together down at the very end of the car, are two doors that he didn't notice when they boarded. One is marked _WC_ , and Edmund smiles. _See, Peter doesn't know everything_.

When he comes back out of the lavatory, the other door, the unmarked one, is open a crack. Two dark eyes stare out at him, and Edmund startles at first, then relaxes when he sees that it's just a little girl Lucy's age, or perhaps even younger. Her compartment is private, with no glass in the door, and Edmund has a curious feeling that she isn't traveling as part of the evacuation.

"Were you looking for the lavatory, too?" he asks her, smiling, but the little girl doesn't answer. She just stands perfectly still behind the door, peeking out at Edmund with big, fearful eyes that concern and confuse him. She can't be older than Lucy, but something in her gaze makes her seem very old. She has none of Lucy's youth or merriment.

"Are you lost?" He steps towards her, but then the door opens wider, and a very different sort of person appears behind the little girl - a great lady, taller than any woman Edmund had ever seen, wearing a white nurse's uniform up to her throat. She speaks quickly to the girl in harsh-sounding words, and the girl tears her eyes away from Edmund and ducks back into the room. It takes Edmund a second to realize that the woman has just spoken German.

 _German_! Edmund doesn't understand everything about the war, but he knows that the Germans are the enemy. Glancing behind the tall woman, he sees another compartment, smaller than most, with the blinds still pulled down over the windows. It's filled with children sitting huddled on the benches, most are younger than Edmund. Are they all German? But how did a bunch of German children get onto a London train? What's going on?

Edmund must look alarmed, because the uniformed woman puts a strong hand on his shoulder. "It's all right," she says, and her completely British accent reassures him. "These children are going where they'll be safe, just like you are."

Then her hand moves to the white identification tag dangling from Edmund's coat, and holds it up. "Edmund Pevensie," she reads in quite a different voice. There's no mistaking the warning in her tone when she looks him in the eye again. "You mustn't tell anyone that you saw us, Edmund."

"I - I'm - " Edmund sputters awkwardly.

"You mustn't tell anyone," she repeats slowly, in the sternest voice that Edmund has ever heard. "Say it, Edmund."

"I - I won't tell anyone," he gets out, gulping, and then the strong hand on his shoulder turns him around and pushes him back down the corridor. He starts walking towards his compartment, but his legs feel all wobbly. But when he pauses, the woman says from behind him, "Keep walking, Edmund. Don't look back."

He bolts down the hall as if someone's chasing him.

When he gets back to their compartment, his siblings can all tell that something's wrong. He's been gone too long for a trip to the lavatory. Peter and Susan exchange some important glance over his head - trying to talk with their eyes, like their parents do - but Edmund doesn't look at them. He doesn't look at anyone. He just slumps down in his seat and stares out the window, his chin his hand, burdened down by the weight of the strange, terrible secret that he's just seen.

Grey stormclouds gathered while he was gone, and soon, raindrops are pelting at the glass pane in front of Edmund's face. But he doesn't see the overcast sky or the rain falling across the fields. He doesn't see anything except those little German children hidden away in that compartment just on the other side of the walls. He doesn't see anything except that little girl's wide, frightened eyes. As the sky darkens and rumbles above him, as the refugee children huddle in the storage room beneath him, a dark doubt in all things good in the world begins to grow in Edmund's heart.

The rain is still pouring when they finally arrive at Professor Kirke's house. Since they can't go out and explore the woods, Lucy suggests a game of hide-and-seek. Peter and Susan agree, but at the word _hide_ , something inside Edmund snaps.

"No, that's a _stupid_ game to play," he spits angrily. Lucy's bright face falls, and Peter at Susan glare at him.

"Do stop grumbling, Ed," Susan says, but he cuts her off.

"Well, it _is_!" he almost yells. Hide-and-seek seems a very foolish game to him now, and it frustrates him that he can't explain why to his siblings, that he can't share the secret of what he saw hidden on that train. Without another word, he turns and bolts down the hallway, as if someone is chasing him again. His siblings decide to let him be by himself, and they carry on the game without him. In a room just on the other side of the walls, Lucy opens the wardrobe for the first time and slips through it into Narnia, while Edmund stares out the window at the rain, angry at the world and wondering how anyone could make a game out of hiding in the dark.

 **FIN**

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For my own reference: 98th fanfiction, 1st story for _The Chronicles of Narnia,_ 3rd time inserting a Jewish OC into a fandom with predominantly Christian characters (previously, _Les Miserables_ and _The Sound of Music_ ). **  
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